http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/pd ... N=16701399well it is that time of year again (and finally a post to knock down the spam for shit quality fake Euro furniture)
I will try and keep this brief there is not a ton that was unexpected
lets of course start with Texas State
we will start with the "bad news" first and get that out of the way
1. well Texas State is still meeting only 1 of the 6 metrics that would be needed AFTER the mandatory first metric of $45 million in restricted research, but in reality that is not unexpected
2. the actual "bad news" is that Texas State moved down in the % of students from the top 25% of the HS class
in 2014 Texas State was right at 50% now they have moved down 2 years in a row
lets me clear this is not a huge deal right now because it really does not matter until Texas State gets closer to the needed $45 million in research
also truth be told the VAST VAST majority of HS seniors are not looking at these NRUF reports and thinking "my God Texas State is enrolling a smaller % of top 25% students do I want to go there"
BUT it is my opinion that Texas State does at least want to manage this to a degree because in my opinion i continued decline in that metric will reflect that Texas State is somehow failing to connect and attract those students and over time students could notice that their "smart friends" are looking elsewhere and if Texas State needed to move that metric it could be harder to move it up than expected
the reality is a couple of years ago Texas State was closer to meeting that metric than UTSA was and now UTSA meets it
UTSA made a concerted effort to raise their admissions standards and it cost them greatly in enrollment, but it has moved their student profile
lets also be clear Texas State still has very good graduation rates and so they seem to be letting in quality students and getting them out, but Texas State also has a very high student to faculty ratio right now and IMO that needs to be improved and enrollment is VERY high right now and I see little need to grow it much larger until the student to faculty ratio is addressed and I think that an increase in admission standards properly done and advertised right could be a benefit overall and could actually help enrollment
also if there is a need I think Texas State would probably be able to deny admission to some "individual review" students and move that ratio.....I have no clue how many they are letting in now or if it is a meaningful number, but of course the fewer students you let in that are below the top 25% the higher the % of those that are in the top 25% becomes for your freshman class.....so if Texas State is letting a decent amount in for enrollment purposes well they can stop that if needed
but again there is not a need now or anytime soon, but it needs to be managed and IMO it needs to be kept closer to the 48% or so range into the future
3. endowment.....this is not exactly "bad news" nor is it a surprise, but the REALITY here is with the movement Texas State has made in restricted research they do need to consider what 4 of 6 criteria they are looking to meet
in the strategic plan they have already admitted that "PhDs graduated" seems to not be reachable in any reasonable period of time and I agree
I also feel that "graduate review of 5 programs to have AAU like metrics" seems like a stretch
so that leaves Freshman Class, University Recognition, Faculty Quality and ENDOWMENT
the NACUBO has Texas State at $167 million in endowment, but I have said before I believe the McCoy College Money is in a non-university endowment and thus it is not counted for NRUF purposes which is why the $137 million is here
$263 million is a chunk of change when you are talking about dollars actually ending up in the endowment Vs something like a "life trust" that you count now, but gets paid over years or years later when someone dies
Texas State can probably only count in the invested portion growing to $150 or $160 million over the next few years simply on investment return because of course they are spending 4.5% to 5% annually
even with $30 million in REAL CASH MONEY donations over the next EIGHT years that only barely gets you to the $400 million and then you have 2 years from there to meet all the needed metrics for both years to collect NRUF money
the "Pride in Action" was "silent" from 2006 to 2011 (a LONG TIME for "silent") and then public for 2011 to 2014 and it raised $151 million, but of course some of that is life trust, life insurance, "in kind services" ect that does not end up in an endowment for a while if ever
generally 3 years is about the shortest before you start another campaign, but Texas State better already be planning one
the LAST thing you want to do is actually meet the restricted research metric and not be prepared to meet the other 4 of 6 needed metrics at that same time because with the up and down nature of restricted research you never know you could end up missing out for a time with failing to match metrics when the time was right
and example would be Texas Tech they were $50 million one year, $46 the next and then $40, but they had already qualified with the two prior years, but if they had not had it all lined up it could have cost them two years of funding at least
4. the last bit of "bad news" really goes with the above and private dollars/endowment
again I think that Texas State will ABSOLUTELY need "faculty quality" and that will mean national academy members since the "faculty awards" one seems almost impossible to meet especially 2 years in a row
Texas State of course right now as the report shows is at 0 for this.....as one can also see UTA moved from 0 to 3 in a single year
Texas Tech also recently managed to hire 3 similar faculty members in a single year as well, but that came with endowed faculty positions of about $2.5 million each....I am not sure what UTA had to offer as far as endowment dollars for a specifically faculty position went or if they had anything
so again Texas State CAN get these types of faculty, but it takes private endowment/faculty chairs to get them generally
In my opinion Texas State probably should have hired at least one already simply because of the new engineering programs that was the perfect time to bring on one as a major professor to get things going or even as a department chair to get things going....the GOOD news is once the Engineering building gets built that will be attractive and also once it is built Texas State has plans for a civil and environmental engineering department so there is again "opportunity" as well
that is pretty much the sum total of the "bad news" which is really not all that bad other than Texas State needs to get rolling and the main reason is because of "good news #1"
1. the restricted research number went from $21 million to $27 million in a single year that is a HUGE jump especially for a younger research university like Texas State (IE just starting PhD programs)
lets be clear here it will be highly probable that number might go down the next report (this time next year) because that is the nature of getting grants especially bigger ones, but the overall pattern for Texas State is a very rapid move up
also from what I am seeing with the other emerging research universities the $30 to $35 million range seems to be difficult to get past
both UTSA and UTA have been up to $32 or so for a couple of years and dropped back down to $30 to $28 million and struggled to get back up past the $30 range again
this could have to do with the idiots stimulus package and research funding being spiked and then dropping back to normal levels and both UTA and UTSA would have been in position to get some of those dollars as larger urban research universities
the good news for Texas State is a new engineering building is on the way, new engineering degree programs are on the way and there is still room for growth in the current engineering programs both in masters and PhD students and faculty while the other emerging research universities have much more mature engineering programs
2. the next bit of good news is that in the very REALISTIC strategic plan that Texas State did last year they specifically discuss the restricted growth and how that works with NRUF qualification and also what of the 4 of 6 criteria they feel are reasonable to meet....but I do not think that $27 million in restricted research was expected so soon
3. other good news is that the Ingram Donation qualifies for TRIP matching funds and Abbott is trying to clear the backlog of needed state matching funds so that money should come sooner than later....right now Texas State has $10 million in "unfunded" which is the third highest behind Tech and UH at about $20 million each which is not great news, but it means when the money comes (hopefully next legislative session) Texas State will be in line for a major bump
also Texas has some other new research "matching" programs out there and one of them is very good news as well....Texas has a program that gives $500,000 for every $10 million in research if you have under $50 million in total research and it gives $1 million for every $10 million in total research if you are at $50 million+ in total research......Texas State in 2015 was at $47.7 million so there is another state funding boost for hitting the $50 million in TOTAL research mark which could happen in 2016
so there is some money out there "in the pipeline" for Texas State to keep moving up in research because dollars usually bring in more dollars and competitively awarded dollars (what restricted research usually is) usually are easier to get with other funding to help match the requested grant dollars
that is really it for "good news" the other universities are what I would call "news" because I am all for "The State of Texas" so them not doing things is not "good news" even if it works for Texas State
lets start with UTD
so they did not meet the endowment number needed and they met barely the first needed criteria of $45 million in restricted research
what this means is they are at least 2 years away from getting NRUF funding provided they keep the restricted research above $45 million in 2016 AND 2017 and of course if they can bump that endowment up a few million this year and hold it into 2017 so they would qualify for funding in 2018
I will not call that "good news" but I will say that every school fewer getting NRUF money just means more time for that WAT TOO SMALL of an endowment to grow a bit faster with fewer mouths to feed.....it really will only mean a few dollars here and there for later qualifying schools but still more is more
hell at this point them might get number of PhDs as well, but you get no bonus bucks for meeting 5 of the 6 criteria so it is what it is really it just shows how fast UTD is moving up
UTA
they are clearly positioning to be the next to qualify after UTD and that is evident with the 3 national academy member hires and it is also evident on a very new "plan" they have laid out on their website where they expect to have an endowment of $500 million by 2020
I am looking at that and thinking that is pretty damn ambitious (hell it is pretty crazy really) because they are at $122.4 according to UTIMCO (stock market down slightly from the NRUF report) and we are in the year 2016, but this plan posted is pretty much brand new and it has a lot of other listed metrics that actually seem realistic and doable so if they think they can raise $375+ million in 4 years after decades of getting to the $122.4 they have now......I hope they do it, but damn they better have someone about to drop $50 million on them X about 4 someones and it ain't me! (wish I could though) plus a lot of other donors lined up and again that statement from them is "endowment" not "pledges for the future" or "when wealthy guy does and we get his life insurance and some of the estate"
the bad news for UTA is for some reason they can't bump up that restricted research number past $30 million or so, but they have a "hiring" listing on the same strategic plan and they are hiring a lot of engineering and natural sciences faculty and they did complete a new research building recently and some of those new Texas research matching programs should help them as well
UTSA.....they are doing well with their freshman class, they have moved up their graduation rate some as well so the entrance metrics are paying off and enrollment has stabilized
they do have 1 national academy member and that is good
the bad news is while they raised decent money for their first ever capital campaign UTA managed to keep pace with them on endowment (they have both been neck and neck for years) and UTA has not exactly been tearing it up fundraising and clearly as stated above UTA looks to be starting some kind of extremely extremely extremely aggressive campaign while as of now UTSA has pretty much fired all their bullets
the reality is UTSA was WAY behind UTD and even UTA in most of the needed areas and they have down well catching up, but the REALITY is Texas State was at even more of a disadvantage and Texas State has caught up and passed UTSA in most needed metrics and looks poised to continue to do so
and while this does not need to be a "competition" and I hope UTSA progresses as well as anyone the reality is that Texas State is doing pretty damn good in elevating the university and Texas State has a lot of momentum left to capitalize on IMO while UTSA needs something new for a push and I am not sure where it will come from or if it will
UTEP.....they have ALWAYS been highly productive as a research university and on a per faculty member basis and really they SHOULD be the UTD of western Texas (without the high admissions), but they are run by an idiot that views the NRUF as not compatible with the "goals" of UTEP to be a degree factory and thus UTEP is not in the running at this time or in the long term future IMO
they are not going to try and meet freshman class because they prefer "opportunity" over quality, they are not going to push graduate programs over undergrad enrollment (even though they do not always have to be "either or") and they seem to have given up on fund raising even though they used to be OK at it and I doubt they push to hire national academy members anytime soon even though they could probably attract some
they have just given up on NRUF and really from the start they said they were not going to push to qualify
north Texas state.....sigh.....mean green gonna mean green...
major budget scandals they get to skate on by the stare for the most part (though still a serious on going issue even if GMGers do not think so because they will and are missing that funding they are no longer getting)
new president and their research profile is DROPPING as the report shows and has been for some time as far as restricted research goes
they are over a year behind on submitting a MANDATED update to the HORRIBLE JOKE OF a strategic plan they have on file with Texas
and their president was just called out by their BOR for possibly needing to cut back on the research focus and instead concentrate more on "enrollment"
I am pretty sure that did not sit well with him and while I will make VERY CLEAR I have ZERO insider info and that is all 100% personal opinion I am pretty sure he did not take the north Texas state job to be a guy running a large catch all university while UTA where he was a faculty member and UTD that he should be very familiar with as well from his UTA days are very clearly moving towards NRUF funding and a larger research and national profile
he was pushing UNLV where he left as president to be a larger research profile and now he gets to north Texas state and the BOR is wanting to question him if he is pushing research too much instead of enrollment
and this when they have the same (not good) 1 to 29 faculty to student ratio that Texas State currently has and the north Texas stare ratio has climbed while the Texas State one is holding steady (which is still not good it needs to go DOWN)
they also lost their faculty member that was a member of two national academies and thus the drop from 4 to 2 in the report A&M stole him away, but he is twice retired anyway and I do not think he taught more than a class or two at north Texas state ans was on loan to A&M the entire time before he jumped ship so he was never going to be there when north Texas state needed him to count he was a product of a terrible administration that stupidly believe they would be close to NRUF qualifications right now as based on their horrid strategic plan (the one that needs to be updated and with tons of missed goals)
more bad news for them they just completed a "major fund raiser" last year and of course it was really just smoke and mirrors, but that means they are a while away from another
they also have been losing a ton of full time faculty and replacing them with adjuncts and part time in spite of a report they were going to do the exact opposite
and in spite of advertising as being "low cost" their average tuition is now higher than all the emerging research universities besides UTD and UH and it is only a couple of hundred less than UH.....and their system bonding capacity is pretty much getting maxed out and they are jacking up dorm and meal plan cost as well
the GREAT news (possible but who knows) is the moron that has been the system chancellor for most of the worst disaster years is going to retire in about 18 months, but who knows what he can screw up between now and then or who he can run off and who knows what dunderhead they will replace him with and what he will screw up
so at the end of the day I still see it like this
UTD gets NRUF funding this time in 2018, UTA this time in 2022 and Texas State is EASILY in line to get it after that and before UTSA, UTEP and north Texas state provided they can raise private dollars and qualification that will probably happen in 8 years from now